Lazar T. Holocaust testimony

Videotape testimony of Lazar T., who was born in Uzlyany, Soviet Union (presently Belarus) in 1930, the oldest of four children. He recalls attending a Jewish school that was closed in 1937, then a Belarussian school; observing Jewish holidays within the family; clandestine religious services; German invasion in June 1941; forced relocation to a designated area; slave labor repairing roads; escaping a mass killing with his brother and sister in October 1941; burying his mother and brother who had been killed; being hidden by a peasant, then a former schoolteacher; finding his father; joining relatives in the Minsk ghetto; hiding during mass killings; escaping from a transport to Maly Trostinec; smuggling food; hearing of Jewish resistance; a mass killing in July 1942, including his brother, sister, and cousin; hiding with relatives behind a false wall his father had built; escaping with his father and others in May 1943; joining partisans in a nearby forest; reconnaissance missions; staying with peasants in Myshevichi; hiding in the forest during a German blockade; his father's enlistment in the Soviet army; and attending school. Mr. T. notes partisan acceptance of him and his father, the only Jews in their group; not revealing that he was in a ghetto after the war, fearing accusations of collaboration; erecting a monument at the mass grave in Uzlyany; his children's difficulty believing his experiences; and increasing painful memories of the murders of his mother and siblings.

6 videocassettes